Interesting piece in the New Yorker about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Though it was published in 2008, it’s still relevant today. The author is David Remnick, the current editor of the New Yorker (he became editor in 1998).
Remnick says that, around 1948, during the first Arab-Israeli war, 700,000 Palestinians left their homes, or were pushed out of their homes (the Palestinians call this al-nakba, the catastrophe). At about the same time, 500,000 Jews left their homes in Arab countries, or were pushed out of their homes in Arab countries. These MiddleEastern Jews were known as Sephardic Jews (as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews, who came from northern and eastern Europe; Spanish Jews were considered Sephardic).
Remnick says that, after the MiddleEastern Jews came to Israel, they joined the Likud party. Perhaps the more cultured, cosmopolitan, left-leaning European Jews gravitated toward the Labor party. During Israel’s first forty years, liberal Ashkenazi Jews seemed to be in the majority, while in recent decades, the conservative Sephardic Jews predominate, perhaps because they have a higher birth-rate.
Remnick’s article discusses a well-known Israeli writer, Benny Morris. Born in 1948, Morris questioned the story that the 700,000 Palestinians left their homes voluntarily, or at the instigation of Arab leaders. This story, this interpretation, was widespread in Israel. Remnick says that we find this story in Exodus, a popular historical novel by Leon Uris, published in 1958; Uris speaks of, “the absolutely documented fact that the Arab leaders wanted the civilian population to leave Palestine as a political issue and a military weapon.”
Among Morris’ books is Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999. Morris isn’t alone; he sees himself as part of a group that he calls the New Historians.
Morris argued that, in many cases, Palestinians were pushed from their homes by force (or the threat of force, or the fear of force). In some cases, Morris argued, Palestinians were massacred by Israelis. WestBank Palestinians are still being pushed off their land today; Israeli settlers want land, and these settlers are often supported by Israeli soldiers.
In 2000, Remnick says, Arafat rejected peace proposals made at Camp David, and Arafat launched the second intifada, leaving Morris “disillusioned... to the point of embitterment.” Morris decided that the Arabs weren’t satisfied with a two-state solution, “they want it all.” The recent Hamas attacks seem to justify Morris’ analysis.
In a 2004 interview, Morris
| spoke of a “deep problem in Islam,” of a world in which “life doesn’t have the same value it does in the West.” The Arabs belonged to a “tribal culture” in which “revenge” played a “central part,” a society so lacking in “moral inhibitions” that “if it obtains chemical or biological or atomic weapons, it will use them.” |
Did this “tribal culture” make it difficult for the Arabs to develop a national consciousness, and a national army? Is this why the Arabs lost the 1948 war? Remnick writes, “In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Palestinian Arabs identified themselves not as a unified people but as subjects of the Ottoman Empire and of the greater community of Islam; their local identities were tied to their villages, clans, and families.”
Morris is pessimistic about the future of Israel; he wonders if a nation of 10 million can survive, surrounded by larger, hostile populations. In opposition to this pessimistic view, it could be argued that Israel is close to peace deals with many of its Arab neighbors. If Israel can conclude these deals, that would leave Iran, and Iran’s nuclear program, as a major Israeli concern. Isn’t it inevitable that Iran’s regime will evolve and change? Iranian hard-liners don’t seem to represent the will of the people.
A word about Remnick’s prose. He says that Morris’ writing has “historical and imaginative sympathy” for both Jews and Arabs. In my view, Remnick should simply say “sympathy,” rather than “historical and imaginative sympathy.” Our writers are afraid of simplicity, they complicate their prose with useless adjectives, they use words that have no clear meaning. Do our writers think that simplicity invites criticism and ridicule?
Imagine a Jewish-American, 100 years old, a survivor of Auschwitz. He hears Trump refer to his opponents as “vermin,” and he hears Trump say that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country. He might think, “Here we go again. If Trump is elected, he’s going to build an Auschwitz in Nebraska. I’ve seen this before.”
Now imagine a 20-year-old Jewish-American, who hears Trump say the same things. Will he draw the same conclusions? He’ll probably think that there’s zero chance of an Auschwitz in Nebraska. He knows that many of his friends are non-Jews, and many of the people he meets don’t know or care that he’s Jewish. Many of his friends have one Jewish parent, and one non-Jewish parent.
So who’s right? Is the 100-year-old right in thinking that it could happen again? Or is the 20-year-old right in not even considering the possibility — in thinking that it’s a zero-chance possibility? I think the 20-year-old is right, I think the 20-year-old is in closer touch with today’s realities.
I would argue that the attitude of the 100-year-old is extremely dangerous, insofar as he will conclude that any measures should be used to defeat Trump, even packing the Supreme Court, even creating new states so as to pack the Senate and pack the electoral college, even allowing 30 million illegal immigrants into the country in order to pack the electorate.
Of course, the attitude that “Trump must be defeated at all costs” isn’t found only among Jewish-Americans, it’s widespread among Democrats. In my view, it’s far more dangerous to the country than Trump is. Trump isn’t a serious person, his words shouldn’t be taken seriously, the danger he represents is largely imaginary. But 30 million illegal immigrants is a real danger, not an imaginary one. When the number of people in the lifeboat reaches a certain level, the boat sinks, and takes everyone down.
The riot on January 6 was over in 4 hours, the impact of 30 million illegal immigrants will still be felt in 400 years. “Where did you get the figure of 30 million?” The current rate of illegal immigration is about 10,000 per day. If we extrapolate this over 8 years (assuming Biden serves 8 years), we get 30 million. In Biden’s first 3 years in office, about 8 million illegal immigrants have entered the country; this is probably an under-count since many slip in unobserved.
Now that Biden has thrown open the border, it will be hard to close it. Even if he spends more money, and increases the number of agents, migrants will keep coming in large numbers. You can’t secure the border without using hardball tactics, and Biden won’t use hardball tactics. Migrants will keep coming until this is no longer a country worth coming to, or until a Republican administration makes a determined effort to secure the border.
A nation’s primary job is to survive. We should be selecting immigrants based on their skills, education, etc. We shouldn’t let immigrants select us because they have no skills and they’re desperate. A nation isn’t a charity. When the number of people in the lifeboat reaches a certain level, the boat sinks, and takes everyone down.
I admit, though, that while the danger of over-reacting to Trump is considerable, Trump himself shouldn’t say such things — shouldn’t describe his political opponents as “vermin,” etc. I’m almost as eager to defeat Trump as Democrats are. In my view, Nikki Haley is the Republican Party’s best hope, the country’s best hope, the world’s best hope. Is she a perfect candidate? No, but we don’t have any perfect options.
Recently Haley was criticized for not mentioning slavery when asked about the cause of the Civil War. It’s an easy question, right? Actually it’s not as easy as one might suppose. Slavery was the root cause, but there were also thorny questions about state sovereignty, the right to secede, etc. Being from South Carolina, Haley would be familiar with the view that the Civil War was about states’ rights, it wasn’t primarily about slavery. This was the view of most Confederates — people of good faith, high intelligence, and much education.
Serpico (1973) is a movie about a policeman in New York City who exposes corruption in the police force. It’s based on a true story, a story told in the book Serpico (the book Serpico was written by a well-known crime writer, Peter Maas). The real Serpico, Frank Serpico, is still alive, 87 years old, and the subject of a documentary, Frank Serpico (2017).
The real Serpico was frustrated because his superiors wouldn’t act on his information, so he went to the New York Times. A front-page story in the Times prompted the mayor to appoint the Knapp Commission to investigate police corruption.
What sort of corruption did Serpico expose? People selling drugs were paying the police, who would allow them to continue selling drugs. One might compare these bribes to “protection money” paid to the Mafia.
In the film, Serpico is played by Al Pacino, who got to know the real Serpico. “Pacino asked him about why he had stepped forward, and Serpico replied... ‘If I didn’t, who would I be when I listened to a piece of music?’”1 Serpico strove to live up to his classical music, as Oscar Wilde strove to live up to his blue china. Art can inspire behavior, mold behavior, set a standard for behavior.
Serpico is a well-regarded movie, and has high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. I thought it was good, but not very good.
The documentary Frank Serpico is better than the movie Serpico. The documentary consists largely of conversations with Frank Serpico, who describes the day when he was shot in the face. He says he had a cold, eerie feeling, as if in the depths of his being, he anticipated what was going to happen. (I’m reminded of Mussolini’s remark, “On October 31, 1926, when I was in Bologna, the spiritual atmosphere seemed to me so oppressive that throughout the day I was anticipating disaster. In the evening there was an attempt on my life.”2)
On the day he was shot, Serpico went to the police station at the start of his shift, as he always did. He felt that all the policemen were aware of him, perhaps because a plan had been hatched to dispatch him, and rumors about him were flying around the station. When his shift began, and he approached the scene of the shooting, he still had an eerie feeling, and he thought of quitting the police force — quitting on the spot. But then he thought, “I’ve taken an oath, I shouldn’t quit.”
If only he had listened to his intuition, his gut feeling! If only he’d retired from the force immediately after exposing corruption! Once he had “spilled the beans,” he was a marked man within the force; he shouldn’t have stayed in the force.
When Serpico came to the door of the drug-dealer, he pretended to be a drug-buyer, and the door was opened a crack. He drew his gun, and expected his two partners to assist him, but they stood back and watched. When he turned to check where they were, he was shot in the face.
His two partners left him to die, a neighbor called for an ambulance. As he lay on the ground, “something was looking down at my body in a pool of blood.” This is what Hemingway felt when he was gravely wounded in World War I: Hemingway felt that he had risen into the air, and he was looking down at his body.
Serpico felt no pain. He felt that he was passing “from the darkness to the light. And then I heard voices calling my name. I shouted silently back, ‘No, no, I’m not coming, I’m gonna live. If I get angry enough, I’ll live.’” One might call this a Near Death Experience.
Serpico wasn’t a typical policeman. He was a former social worker, and he lived in Greenwich Village, an artsy area. As he observed police corruption, and attempted to expose it, his partner was David Durk, a Jewish graduate of Amherst College — another atypical policeman. Irish predominated in the NewYorkCity police force.
According to an old saying, power corrupts. The police have some power, so they’re liable to become corrupt. In many countries, there’s more police corruption than there is in the U.S. I’ve heard that in India, for example, if you’re caught speeding, you pay the policeman directly, you don’t pay the government, bribery is widespread and accepted. It has been said that, in New York City, there was a corruption scandal in the police department every twenty years; if this is true, the “Serpico Scandal” wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last.
In Coleridge’s day, literary criticism was a blood sport, like gladiatorial combats. After Coleridge published Biographia Literaria, a critic named John Wilson, writing under a pseudonym, said “We cannot see in what the state of literature would have been different, had [Coleridge] been cut off in childhood, or had he never been born.”3 Referring to Coleridge’s separation from his wife, Wilson said, “A man who abandons his wife and children is undoubtedly both a wicked and pernicious member of society.” William Hazlitt, once a friend of Coleridge’s, published a “10,000-word assault,” describing Biographia Literaria as a “garrulous” production from “the maggots of his brain.... Till he can do something better, we would rather hear no more of him.”4
Thomas Love Peacock wrote friendly satires of Coleridge, calling him “Mr Panscope” in a novel named Headlong Hall, and calling him “Mr Mystic” in a novel named Melincourt.
Coleridge had supporters as well as detractors. One of his staunchest supporters was Lord Byron. Byron was a fan of Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner” and his “Christabel.” Byron regarded Coleridge as a “genuinely prophetic writer” with “strange power.”5 Byron helped Coleridge to make contact with publishers and theaters.
Byron and Coleridge exchanged friendly letters, and met once in 1816. Coleridge recited “Kubla Khan,” and Byron was impressed by Coleridge’s conversation. Coleridge was “dazzled by Byron, his wit, his physical beauty, and the extraordinary expressiveness of his features.”6
When Byron read Biographia Literaria in 1817, he was intrigued by Coleridge’s view that the reciting of a poem often involved a mesmerizing of the audience, an “animal magnetism,” a “hypnotic power.” Hence recitation often had a greater effect than silent reading.7 Perhaps recitation through video also has some hypnotic power.
What Coleridge calls “animal magnetism” is very close to what I call the occult. Both involve leaping over space and time, perceiving things that are far away, or anticipating future events. Coleridge noticed a similarity between cases of “animal magnetism” and cases of religious excitement, such as he read about in Southey’s Life of Wesley.8 All sorts of excitement seem conducive to occult phenomena.
Coleridge was so interested in animal magnetism that he considered moving to Berlin to study it.9 He felt that the Germans were pioneers in the field, especially a man named Klug.10 Coleridge said he studied animal magnetism for nine years, “collected a mass of documents,” and “never neglected an opportunity of questioning eye-witnesses.”
He’s still not sure what to think: “the evidence enforces skepticism and a non liquet [it is not clear].” One must see such things oneself, because it’s hard to believe another person’s account of them; as a botanist named Treviranus said to Coleridge, “I have seen what I am certain I would not have believed on your telling; and in all reason, therefore, I can neither expect nor wish that you should believe on mine.”11
Coleridge’s generation had a rational bent, so Coleridge probably felt that if he were receptive toward the occult, he would damage his reputation — damage his already-shaky reputation. While he weighs the evidence for-and-against divination (foretelling the future), he’s careful to keep himself at arm’s length; he says he has the “fullest conviction of the non-existence of such a power.” His Christian faith probably made him less receptive to the occult; Christianity has always had a frosty relationship with the occult.12
But we shouldn’t quickly and contemptuously dismiss divination: “As many errors are despised by men from ignorance as from knowledge.” Coleridge says that Cicero wrote a book on divination, and listed the “great statesmen and philosophers” who believed in divination, after they “subjected the question to the most exquisite arguments,” looked at the evidence from their own experience, and supported their belief “by a minute analysis of human nature and its faculties.”13
Coleridge says that, when we dismiss divination, we do so because we’ve lost “our feelings of reverence towards mankind at large.” This implies that our ability to foretell the future, and perform other occult feats, is one of the glories of mankind, an indication of the richness and mystery of human nature, an indication of the power of the unconscious, the power of intuition, dream, etc. When we dismiss the occult, human life becomes stale, flat, and unprofitable. If we’re receptive to the occult, we have a bond with all mankind, with people in all times and places, even the most primitive people. The unconscious is the great equalizer; as Coleridge said, “the dullest wight is at times a Shakespeare in his dreams.”14
Another reason we dismiss divination, Coleridge says, is that we have “an increasing aversion to every opinion not grounded in some appeal to the senses.” We’ve become slaves of the senses, of the physical.
We shouldn’t accept occult phenomena because our society does, because we imbibed them with our mother’s milk. At the same time, we shouldn’t reject occult phenomena because our society does; Coleridge says, “Incredulity is but credulity seen from behind, bowing and nodding assent to the habitual and the fashionable.”15
One gets the impression that Coleridge was receptive to divination, though he tries to keep it at arm’s length. He says that dreams sometimes foretell the future, just as dreams sometimes have total recall of the past:
| It ought not to surprise us, if such dreams should sometimes be confirmed by the event, as though they had actually possessed a character of divination. For who shall decide, how far a perfect reminiscence of past experiences (of many perhaps that had escaped our reflex consciousness at the time), who shall determine, to what extent this reproductive imagination... may or may not be concentered and sublimed into foresight and presentiment?16 |
Much of Coleridge’s writing is an attack on the shallow rationalism of the enlightenment, the shallow rationalism of the French philosophes. The philosophes treated old beliefs and customs with contempt. When we discard the beliefs of our ancestors, Coleridge says, we’re likely to discard their institutions, too; in other words, revolution in thought leads to revolution in deed. Coleridge says of the French philosophes,
| They taught many facts, historical, political, physiological, and ecclesiastical, diffusing their notions so widely that the very ladies and hair-dressers of Paris became fluent encyclopedists; and the sole price, which their scholars paid for these treasures of new light, was to believe Christianity an imposture, the Scriptures a forgery, the worship of God superstition, hell a fable, heaven a dream, our life without providence, and our death without hope. What can be conceived more natural than the result, that self-acknowledged beasts should first act, and next suffer themselves to be treated, as beasts?17 |
Lionel Trilling noticed that his contemporaries had a rational bent, and this rationalism was desiccating the world, making the world prosaic. Classical liberalism, Trilling says, “inclines to constrict and make mechanical its conception of the nature of mind.” The intellect needs imagination and emotion. Trilling says that this was the teaching of Mill, and Trilling says that Mill was influenced by Coleridge. Trilling says “Mill urged liberals to read Coleridge.... to become acquainted with this powerful conservative mind.” Trilling understood that rationalism flattens the world, and if we appreciate the power of the unconscious, the world becomes richer, more interesting.18
Coleridge says that, as the number of books has increased, respect for books has decreased: “In times of old, books were as religious oracles; as literature advanced, they next became venerable preceptors; they then descended to the rank of instructive friends; and, as their numbers increased, they sank still lower to that of entertaining companions.”19
© L. James Hammond 2023
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| Footnotes | |
| 1. | Wikipedia back |
| 2. | Emil Ludwig, Talks With Mussolini, V, 1 back |
| 3. | Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #14 back |
| 4. | Though he criticized Coleridge harshly, Hazlitt still remembered the impression Coleridge once made on him: “His genius at that time had angelic wings, and fed on manna. He talked on forever; and you wished him to talk on forever. His thoughts did not seem to come with labor and effort; but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him from off his feet. His voice rolled on the ear like the pealing organ, and its sound alone was the music of thought. His mind was clothed with wings; and raised on them, he lifted philosophy to heaven.”(Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #20) back |
| 5. | Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #14. These are Holmes’ words, not Byron’s. back |
| 6. | Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #2 back |
| 7. | Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #14. See also Biographia Literaria, Ch. 24, Shawcross edition Vol. 2, pp. 211, 212 back |
| 8. | Complete Works of Coleridge, edited by Shedd, Vol. VI, Table Talk, pp. 302, footnote by Shedd. For more on animal magnetism, see the big Princeton edition of Coleridge’s Complete Works ==> Shorter Works ==> 1817 ==> Animal Magnetism ==> p. 588 back |
| 9. | Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #13 back |
| 10. | If you go to the big Princeton edition of Coleridge’s Complete Works ==> Shorter Works ==> 1817 ==> “On Animal Magnetism” ==> p. 588, you find that Coleridge annotated a book by C. A. F. Kluge on animal magnetism back |
| 11. | Complete Works of Coleridge, edited by Shedd, Vol. VI, Table Talk, p. 303, footnote by Shedd, quoting a marginal note made by Coleridge in Southey’s Life of Wesley. The complete note is quite lengthy. How could Coleridge write so much in the margin of a book? back |
| 12. | Coleridge wrote, “The man, who is indeed a Christian, will as little think of informing himself concerning the future by dreams or presentiments, as for looking for a distant object at broad noonday with a lighted taper in his hand.”(Statesman’s Manual, Appendix B, Complete Works of Coleridge edited by Shedd, Vol. I, p. 470. In some editions, this is called “Appendix C.” Holmes refers to it as Appendix C {see Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Ch. 9, #8}. It begins, “Reason and Religion differ only as a two-fold application of the same power.” If you’re interested in Coleridge’s view of the occult, you should look at this Appendix, and search Coleridge’s works for “animal magnetism.”) back |
| 13. | Statesman’s Manual, Appendix B, Complete Works of Coleridge edited by Shedd, Vol. I, p. 469 back |
| 14. | Statesman’s Manual, Appendix B, Complete Works of Coleridge edited by Shedd, Vol. I, p. 466 back |
| 15. | Coleridge wrote, “Are we to be credulous by birthright, and take ghosts, omens, visions, and witchcraft, as an heirloom? God forbid.”(Statesman’s Manual, Appendix B, Complete Works of Coleridge edited by Shedd, Vol. I, p. 469) The quote about incredulity is from the same work, p. 466 back |
| 16. | Statesman’s Manual, Appendix B, Complete Works of Coleridge edited by Shedd, Vol. I, p. 466 back |
| 17. | Statesman’s Manual, Appendix B, Complete Works of Coleridge edited by Shedd, Vol. I, pp. 467, 468 back |
| 18. | Trilling, The Liberal Imagination, Preface back |
| 19. | Biographia Literaria, Ch. 3 back |